A'S NOTEBOOK / Isringhausen `Fine' After Letdown

Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, September 5, 2000

2000-09-05 04:00:00 PDT Toronto -- A day after being removed, at least temporarily, from the closer spot, Jason Isringhausen addressed the situation which had angered him so much on Sunday that he refused to discuss it.

"I was mad and I didn't want to say anything dumb," Isringhausen said. "But I'm perfectly fine now. . . . The main thing is that I agreed with what Art (Howe) did. I don't blame him. We needed a win and that's what we got."

Isringhausen, who had an 11.57 ERA in his eight outings before his demotion, said that Howe had told him last week that he might start working him a little differently. So when the bullpen became active in a one-run game Sunday, Isringhausen told reliever T.J. Mathews, "They won't put me in."

Even so, Isringhausen was upset to see Jim Mecir taking over the closer role. But that anger isn't necessarily a bad thing, he said.

"I just haven't been pitching well," he said. "But (Sunday) might have been good. I feel 10 times different than I did three days ago, and it took me getting mad. The way I was before, I was just ho-hum. I didn't know what I was doing. But (Sunday), I was ticked because I wanted to get into the game."

There's no secret about the source of Isringhausen's trouble. Howe, Isringhausen and pitching coach Rick Peterson all said that he is not concentrating. "My focus there for a while wasn't great," Isringhausen admitted. "But not pitching has made me hungry. Thinking about losing your job gets you off your behind a little bit.

"I have the physical ability; I don't think anybody doubts that. It's just the part between the ears that gets in my way. But I've got to put this behind me."

Howe said before yesterday's game that he hadn't ruled out using Isringhausen in the closer spot in the series finale at SkyDome, and Isringhausen did pitch the ninth yesterday, albeit in an Oakland blowout. He walked one, hit one and threw a wild pitch, but escaped unscored upon.

"I'm glad Jason was mad," Howe said. "Nobody wants to be in a position where you're not doing the job you're supposed to be doing. But performance counts, too. Ups and downs are part of the game, and it's no fun going through the downs."

Isringhausen was relatively pleased with his outing yesterday. "It's a zero, put it that way. And at least I didn't hit anybody in the stands," he said, referring to the pitch starter Barry Zito threw over the backstop.

"We'll see what they do. They might not put me in in Boston, but I won't blow my top. I don't deserve to be in there; this is a bad time of year to be pitching bad."

MISCELLANY: Onetime A's starter A.J. Hinch was in at catcher yesterday, his first big-league appearance of the season, and he went 2-for-5 and caught a shutout. "This was a great first day back," Hinch said. "It felt like I was just here yesterday." . . . Left-hander Todd Belitz made his major-league debut, walking two batters in the eighth before being replaced by Mathews. "I said, 'Hey, you learned from this,' " Howe said. "I know the adrenaline was pumping like crazy." Said Belitz: "I was excited, but that's not an excuse. The catcher is still sitting 60 feet away." . . . Jason Giambi did not play in the field yesterday; Howe said he preferred to use Giambi at DH because of the artificial turf at SkyDome. . . . The A's have won nine of their past 10 at SkyDome. . . . The A's have hit 17 homers in the past 10 games.